- Brings together more than 1,500 of the most commonly used English cliches, outlining the meaning of each expression, its origins and the reason for its creation. Cliches have never been flavour of the month with school teachers, editors or literary connoisseurs, and are potential banana skins for journalists and students. For most of us, preventing these old-hat expressions from punctuating our everyday conversations and writing is more easily said than done. In this new edition of the popular Dictionary of Cliches Betty Kirkpatrick once again spills the beans on the most commonly used cliches. It is up to the reader to decide whether the use of cliche is flogging a dead horse, or exploiting a valuable means of cutting a long story short.